Author: Adam Rechenmacher

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My boys are not that unusual from other kids their age. They love Thomas the Train, they are loud and spontaneous, and they don’t like eating their vegetables. When my wife and I set the table, they look at their plates and declare “I don’t like that.” We respond with, “How do you know, you’ve never had that before.” And they respond with clairvoyance “I already know I don’t like that.” Almost every dinner that same pattern repeats itself: their declaration, our response, their prophetic knowing, and the struggle persists.

The Pixar® Movie Inside Out has a great line that our family often quotes. The green emotion character, Disgust, is in charge of keeping her person, Riley, from being “poisoned both physically and socially.” When a foreign food is offered to her, Disgust takes control and says, “That is not brightly colored, or shaped like a dinosaur… Hold on guys… It’s Broccoli!” and she causes Riley to reject the food. That is JUST like our boys. Something foreign is not to be trusted and they will almost always reject what is being offered.

The same thing is true for most of us on a larger scale. New experiences, relationships, social settings, or responsibilities are great breeding ground for Disgust’s concern to pop up in our hearts. The unknown, the undetermined, and the vastness of possible outcomes can be overwhelming. It doesn’t take much, sometimes just a thought, and BAM! Anxiety is upon us. At the same time we experience Anxiety, we are again presented with all of our different strategies to try to get rid of it. In the previous Blog entries I discussed the two strategies of medicating and running away. We also have another unhelpful strategy: be like my young boys and stand your ground and determine your own fate.

In Adrian Van Kaam book, The Art of Existential Counseling, Van Kaam introduces three categories for experiencing events throughout your day: will-lessness, willfulness, and willingness. My boys are extremely Willful towards events like “dinner time” or “bed time” or anything that cause them to take a break from playing. In their minds they have pre-determined that whatever I may have to offer them cannot possibly be as good as what they are currently playing with. My oldest son’s first Thanksgiving, he could not be convinced that he would like Pumpkin Pie. There was another time I could not convince him that he would like an In-N-Out Burger Milkshake. Logic did not work. Talking through the main ingredients of a Milk Shake did not work. Appealing to our trust-relationship as Father and Son did not work. His expectations controlled his reality, and his unbending will kept him from receiving a real gift that he would have enjoyed tremendously.

I am just like my son. I want to eliminate as many surprises and foreign experiences as possible to avoid the unwelcome feeling of Anxiety. For this reason, when I begin my day I have largely predetermined its outcome. I know the meetings I need to go to, and I have desires for how they will go. I know the people I will talk to, and I know what I need to get from them. When I come home from work I have expectations of my wife and my children and how they will interact with me. When any of these events or people deviate from my expectations, rather than embrace it, I willfully force it fit my small expectations.

When I exchange what is for what I expect, I am no longer living in reality – I’m living in my ego. My children cease to be real people, my wife ceases to be a unique individual, even events are reduced to sitcom. In fact, everything becomes just another extension or projection of my own ego. God, in his limitless and infinite agency is not safe from being replaced by a much smaller projection of what my ego can more easily control. The limit of what can be hijacked by our ego knows no bounds. The reduction of unknowns in order to ultimately reduce anxiety comes at a great cost.

Of all the bad strategies to get rid of Anxiety, I think most people use this one the most. As long as there are possibilities in a day there is potential for anxiety. The danger with this strategy is that it keeps you from trying Pumpkin pie and In-N-Out Burger Milkshakes. It keeps you from enjoying the unexpected and unpredictable. It could open you up to heartache, but it could also open you up to love that you could have never conceived of with your small expectations.

I have to say that out of all the four strategies I use to not deal with anxiety in a healthy way, this fainthearted strategy is the one I use least and am less intimately acquainted with. But when I woke up in the middle of the night yesterday and realized I had a plumbing problem that couldn’t wait for the morning, I quickly adopted this strategy as an effective little way to combat the anxiety that was upon me at once. Fully engaged in this fainthearted escape, I went back to bed to pretend to sleep. Unfortunately, I laid awake unsatisfied thinking about a handful of things: (1) how angry I was that I wasn’t sleeping (2) how actively I was running away from an immediate problem (3) how this was a perfect blog illustration about depressing anxiety (4) and how similar this felt to other childhood experiences I felt growing up which I had long forgotten about. I was not expecting the last thought (it wasn’t a willful act of remembering or anything), and in fact there wasn’t even a distinct memory attached to the remembered feeling at all.

That’s how stored feelings and emotions happen sometimes. In some instances they are attached to a distinct memory and at other times they will come back all on their own if necessary. In some extraordinary circumstances I have experienced physiological manifestations of emotions when I was unable to remember a circumstance and my “feelings” were numb from overuse. In those cases I learned to pay attention to what my mind was trying to alert me to through my body. In those times of prayer, I would start to feel my body overheat, and I would take that as a clue that I was touching on something real and didn’t have the emotional capacity to alert me through normal means like sadness, nostalgia, fear or tears. I had to do the manual work of processing what I was dealing with in prayer instead of what would otherwise be done through the automatic work of existential engagement.

In addition to memories or physiological signs, anxiety is another way for feelings to be brought to our attention. Anxiety is a very helpful vehicle for memory recall, especially emotional memory recall. Time travel is one of the great benefits of anxiety that we miss out on when we do not give it a proper role in our life. Anxiety has the ability to transport you back 20 or 30 years in a millisecond of the subconscious. It has the ability to put you right back in your 1st grade classroom and feel things only a six year old can feel, things that your developed adult reasoning doesn’t allow you to feel anymore. This is God’s gift to you. To go back in time with Him to experience scary, confusing, and even traumatizing events to a child with the safety of an adult-reality and with a forgiven and accepted conscience.

I was never very athletic growing up. I loved playing sports but wasn’t very good at them. I was a much better spectator than participant. Things seemed easier and natural for other kids and I had to work much harder to be just average. I don’t find that to be true anymore. I would consider myself athletic, and now think that I am a better participant than spectator. I’ve always wanted to go back to my Little League days with my developed motor skills of an adult. I’d be so stinking good. I’d be the Babe Ruth of my team. Those 10-year-old fastballs would have nothing on me.

So today in the pitch black of the early hours of the day thinking about my plumbing problems, I laid in my bed feeling like the world just crapped on me again. I didn’t want to deal with what I knew needed to be dealt with. I was presented with feelings of inadequacy, helplessness and irrational young fear. I was trying to depress my anxiety by avoiding it, but God was using this too as an opportunity for greater freedom and relationship with me. He gave me the opportunity re-engage with unresolved childhood emotions, not by myself but together with Him. The plumbing was ancillary, the meaning behind the plumbing was central. There is a way I could have made the plumbing central, but that too would have been an unhealthy way to deal anxiety (I’ll go in to that strategy next Blog Entry). God was with me last night, and He was thinking about how to offer me greater freedom. He presented me with a paralyzing childhood emotional-response that still affects me today into adulthood and asked if I wanted a different result, if I wanted to be a Babe Ruth.

The longest car ride I ever had was a five-minute drive from my friend’s house a short dash away from the driveway of my parent’s San Jose home. I was sixteen years old and I just received my driver’s license. For sixteen years I had only experienced car rides as a communal event. For most of that time I was the passenger in my parents large early-90’s silver and maroon-striped GM Suburban. For the most recent previous six month I was driving on a permit, which required I drove with someone more experienced than myself to help teach me the laws and subtleties of the dangerous road.

And so, on Blossom Hill Rd, in a car that’s radio didn’t work, I experienced solitude in a place I never had before. At first it was exhilarating to drive all by myself. But then I realized I had no one to share my joy and excitement with. Then my excitement turned to sadness, and my sadness, worry. It was not the silence or solitude itself that disturbed me, but the un-expectant nature of it – the surprise! I did not welcome it, it just happened upon me all at once. And there I was, me and my anxiety.

Last Blog entry, I talked about how anxiety is supposed to be a tool like hunger pangs are. But we have learned to misinterpret what anxiety is trying to tell us. For me in that Ford Taurus Station Wagon I interpreted the message of anxiety as: “it is not okay to be alone. Solitude makes me feel uncomfortable so I must avoid being alone.” The same way the cold makes me shiver, therefore I must avoid walking outside without a jacket. It goes without saying, fixing the car stereo became a number one priority for me.

…

After almost ten years of avoiding being alone I signed up for my first 48-hour long solitude retreat. The rules: no talking, no media, no phone, NO ESCAPE! (at least that’s how it felt). When I arrived at the beautiful scenic mountaintop home, I checked out all the rooms and amenities. I sat down in a comfy chair in the living room to pray. It lasted less than 30 minutes before I got antsy and grabbed a cup of coffee and sat in another room. For 48 hours it went on like that. I was chased from room to room by the anxiety that used to sit in the passenger seat of my car 10 years earlier.

For 10 years I had tried to turn off the “dummy-light” on the dashboard by repressing and distracting. That strategy was a complete failure, it wouldn’t go away, it wouldn’t die. Although, the retreat itself was not a total complete failure. The first night at the retreat house, I searched a small library in the home for some poetry or fiction to distract me. To my dismay there was none to be found. But then I heard a small prompting in my heart urging me to write my own. I am not a poet, nor a writer, but with little other choice, I put pen to paper and started writing.

For the rest of the day I wrote and edited my first poem, and an amazing thing happened. I heard God whisper, “I like it, write more.” I wrote another short four line verse, and I heard Him whisper again in my heart, “I like it, write more.” In between being chased from room to room by my anxiety I was able to sit long enough to be with God and feel him enjoy me. Although I knew God loved me, I hadn’t experienced him “liking” me. And the subconscious knowing of not being likeable was unbearable.

…

Four years later, I was sitting in a one-bedroom room of another hilltop retreat venue. I had been staring out the window for some time. My body felt tired so I curiously looked at my clock to realize I had been sitting in the same spot for eight hours, and it was now time for bed. As I got ready to turn-in I laughed to myself and wondered where my old companion was that used to taunt me from the passenger seat and chase me from room to room. I had failed to kill it, instead I had learned it can’t be repressed, it can’t be medicated, it can’t be killed, only welcomed; and that changed everything.

More on this story and the strategy of “depressing” anxiety in the next entry…

With freedom to live life comes anxiety about what you do with that life. Freedom confronts us with the uncertainty of our future. Am I really being led in wisdom or by God? What will my life amount to? What will the future hold? Can I handle it?

No one likes anxiety. But anxiety was supposed to be a helpful tool for us. For instance, no one likes the feeling of hunger or thirst, but thirst is a helpful tool that tells us we are beginning to run empty, and need to refuel. No one likes to feel cold, but that sensation is an indicator our body is running below optimal operational temperature. It is not good to ignore these sensations, these helpful tools.

The same is true of anxiety. It doesn’t tell us we lack food or water, or warmth, but it tells us that we are lacking peace, we are lacking Shalom. It tells us that there are still pockets of our heart that have not been exposed to God’s peace. The healthy way to respond to anxiety is to lean into it. Let it be a gentle guide to lead us to where we are not at Shalom. When I’m cold, where am I cold? Are my hands cold? Do they need gloves, or do I need a jacket? Are my feet cold? Do I need to put on some socks? I’m feeling anxious – what about what she said made me feel anxious? I’m alone in my car and the silence makes me feel uneasy – what about the silence makes me feel anxious? There is a place in our heart that is not at Shalom, there is a place where we have not experienced God’s loving presence. Anxiety is supposed to be “the dummy light on the dashboard of our soul.”* It is to make us aware of a problem that our heart is not operating in the trust of God and His love as it should.

That is the way a healthy person would respond to anxiety but that is not the typical response we normally have. There are at least four ways in which I’ve identified my typical response to anxiety so I’m sure you will relate to at least one or two of them (I’ll spend some more time going into detail about each of these in future blog posts):

Medicate/retreat (repress) “I don’t want to think about it.” Facebook, videogames, Netflix, relationships, sport – You can medicate with just about anything not just drugs and alcohol.

Faint/surrender (depress) “Life just shit on me again.” When that happens you can die a little inside. Turn off to the possibilities; shut down to the future to protect yourself with fortified emotional defenses.

Resist/fight (suppress) “Life’s trying to shit on me, but I wont let it happen. I’m too willful to accept this. I am the captain of my destiny.” You can also shut down to the present by being unable to accept what is. There is no time for an open-heart while a problem goes unsolved.

Fantasize/create illusions (impress) “These things don’t happen to other people.” You can’t handle the present reality so you dream about yourselves as another person – a person who is okay in the future. You fantasize about being somebody in the future that really is strong enough, or smart enough, or able enough to handle whatever we are anxious about. Illusions are the most dangerous in my opinion because they fly under the radar, and we don’t honestly think they are a problem; they’re just a happy harmless thought.

Which strategy do you most relate to? What is your go-to response?

*This phrase and many of these ideas come from Dr. John Coe who has influenced my thinking tremendously.

In the last entry I discussed the different stages of prayer the Church Fathers and Mothers have observed in their own personal/cultural contexts. All of these different models reflect a larger 3-stage understanding of growth in prayer. Those three stages consist of a purgative part, an illuminative part, and a unitive experience or goal. Origen was one of the first to introduce the church to a three-fold outline using the words “morals” “physics” and “contemplation.” Each of these three disciplines shares commonality with the classic “purgation, illumination, and union” terms. Many more after him only confirmed and piled on to his early work.

In the twelfth and thirteenth century much was contributed to the three-fold model of spiritual growth. Bernard of Clairvaux, a great leader and recruiter for the Cistercian order in the twelfth century, became one of the most renowned writers of the Middle Ages. His flare for romantic and love language used in his mystical writings was revolutionary and attractive. Indirectly, Bernard mirrors the classic three-fold stages with his own “three-fold kiss of Christ.” “The kiss of the feet symbolizes the penitential preparation; the kiss of the hand is given to those making progress; and the kiss of the mouth is a rare experience given only to the perfect.”

A close successor to Bernard was Francis of Assisi of the thirteenth century. Most of what we know about Francis and his theology is processed through the writings of Bonaventure, his biographer. Because of the great influence Francis had on Bonaventure, in many ways they share a similar mysticism. For instance, while Bonaventure was reflecting on Francis’ vision of the six-winged Seraph, he himself received a similar vision. To him, this vision described the journey toward union with Christ. The three sets of two closely follow the purgation, illumination, and union themes.

“In the first two the mind turns outside itself to find God through his vestiges in the universe… in the next two the mind turns within itself to contemplate God both through his image imprinted on our natural powers of memory, understanding, and will… and in the last two the mind rises above itself to consider the divine Unity through its primary name, “being” and also the blessed Trinity through its name, “the good.”

Beyond this particular reflection, Bonaventure had much to offer on the developmental stages of spiritual growth. He wrote a much longer account solely on this topic called De triplici via (The Triple Way), and many other that are loosely related to this topic called Itinerarium mentis ad Deum (The Soul’s Journey into God), The Six Wings of the Seraph, and The Fire of Love.

Of all the writers on the classic three stages, St. John of the Cross of the sixteenth century might be the most precise. His vast education and tutelage under St. Teresa of Avila made him a well sought after spiritual director of many. Being responsible for so many people’s growth in Christ made him keenly aware of all the intricacies of each developmental stage. Discerning one’s own growth is a very difficult task, one that requires a Spiritual Director to offer truthful assessment in love. John notes two pitfalls, “people doing something intensely and not even knowing that they are doing it” and those “who are scarcely beginning and yet think they are far advanced.” Personal discernment is often confused by the passive nature of growth between the three stages. In his famous work, Dark Night of the Soul, and it’s counterpart, Ascent of Mount Carmel, he wrote extensively about the active as well as the passive nature of progress between the stages including two dark nights separating purgation from illumination, and illumination from union.

Over the ages many people have tried to describe what growth in prayer looks like by outlining it for the rest of us to glean insight and understanding into our own prayer lives. I’ve found it amusing just how many different pictures or models have been offered over the years.

I think this may be because each person is created individually and uniquely different from the rest, therefore that person’s experience interacting with God is also unique. Because each person is particularly made, the Father particularizes His love for each of His children differently. This phenomenon is one of many factors, which account for the differences of how the saints have interpreted stages of growth. Because of this factor, as well as others like hermeneutical liberties, there have been some discrepancies in a universal model as to exactly how many developmental stages a “baby Christian” ought to experience on their way to full maturation in Christ.

Origen, the earliest contributor to this discussion, at one time suggested that there are forty-two stages! He arrives at this number through his parallelism of Israel’s wilderness account in the book of Numbers to the life of a believer. Finding the spiritual or higher meaning in a Bible story was an “integral part of his overall understanding of scripture, according to which a hidden or “mystical” sense was to be found beneath or alongside the “narrative” sense.”* In another work of his, Origen completely sets aside the Numbers model for a much simpler model fashioned after the three books of Solomon: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.

St. Augustine, who influenced church thought in the forth or fifth century, also offered his own model of growth. “In his De quantitate animae, one of his earliest treatises and one which reflects the strong emphasis of Neoplatonism, Augustine writes of the seven stages or steps involved in the ascent to the knowledge and contemplation of God.”

It may seem as if there is no correlation between these authors or many others who came after them. Origen presented forty-two stages, while Augustine presented seven; John Cassian is unclear if there are four or five stages. Hugh and Richard of St. Victor seem agreeable but Richard takes Hugh’s final stage and divides it into six! St. Teresa seems like the over-achiever and makes seven stages out of St. John of the Cross’ three.

Although there may seem to be no relation or collaboration between these spiritual writers, there is actually much more similarity than there is dissimilarity. Even among all of the great thinkers mentioned above there is general consensus about three meta-stages to the spiritual life present in each of their individual models (which I’ll dig into more in my next Blog Entry). Those three stages consist of a purgative part, an illuminative part, and a unitive experience or goal. The apostle Paul gives plenty of support for these different roles or seasons in a believer’s life, although he doesn’t give a linear order or a coherent picture for moving between these states.

In terms of the purgative and illuminative process, Paul stated, “Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.” To the Ephesians, he suggests a two-fold process, one of emptying, and another of filling.

In regards to the telos of growth or the “unitive” portion of prayer – Paul quotes from his own experience when he says, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” And again in another place he adds, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Gleaning from Paul’s personal experience, it can be assumed that Paul’s experience of Christ had moved beyond relationality to a mysterious unitive familiarity that can only be described in metaphors and mystical language.

What do you think? Have you experienced different seasons or flavors of prayer? How many distinct “stages” have you experienced? Do you spend more time in either purgative, illuminative, or unitive prayer than others?

I wanted to spend a few weeks going a little more in depth into the theories of Spiritual Growth in order to spur on conversation and possible new thought experiments. Typically there has been a general consensus of telos, but the nature of growth has been much more debated. In the twentieth century mystical writer Evelyn Underhill “reopened a longstanding medieval dispute: Does mystical union consist in a cognitive experience conditioned by love of God… or is it a “dark” experience of the will and the inner affections.”* What Evelyn brings up is probably the most hotly debated topic among those of the nature of spiritual growth. As one moves closer to God, is there an increasing amount of holy light or is there a decreasing amount of light into complete holy darkness?

This debate first started as early as the fourth century. Gregory of Nyssa, the greatest mystical writers of Cappadocian Fathers, differed from his predecessor, Origen. “Origen emphasizes a movement of increasing light; the soul moves from darkness to light and then on to greater light. For Gregory, however, the journey begins in light and moves toward lesser light and then into darkness.”

This “way of darkness” was, in short time, repeated by Evagrius, who stressed the way of darkness as necessary to contemplate God, and calls it “pure prayer.” Pseudo-Dionysius championed Gregory of Nyssa’s views and firmly planted it into the theology of the church for years to come. His apophatic writings are clearly argued in The Mystical Theology. He states, since the intellect and the senses are so limited ”we must leave all created things behind and find God in the darkness.”

The apophatic teachers in Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius’ camp make a very compelling argument. How can we relate to a God who is completely above everything we could ever perceive? But in the other camp, writers like John Gerson, Bernard of Clairvaux, and St. Bonaventure offer equally compelling arguments. They suggest that as one is more purified and more illuminated they are closer to Light and Love. How could one move toward He who is Love and Light and not be surrounded by it. Bernard writes “It is characteristic of true and pure contemplation that when the mind is ardently aglow with God’s love, it is sometimes so filled with zeal and the desire to gather to God those who will love him with equal abandon…”

What can be said about our five senses;
that leaves us More defined,
More constricted
More limited.
I care More about the often unused sense
the sense that detects love
loves good, and
loves well.
I will make this the king over all my other senses;
He will become the coach to the five on the field.
He will lead the drills,
and they will feel the sweat on their brow.

My ears will spend their time in silence,
in quietness they will grow,
learning patience as well as eagerness.
They will dream of sounds, both
foreign and
familiar;
Notes running melodies on eighths
and carefully leaping from halves to wholes.
Their desire for constant arousal will fade,
Their ecstasy will be respectful satisfaction.

My eyes have already tasted from the
tree of knowledge of good and evil,
so now they must spend the rest of their days
buried in the scrolls of wisdom;
Being educated in discernment.
They will study the sensitivity of subtlety, and
significance of circumstance
from the eyes who went before,
now tragically gouged out.
In beauty they will become gluttonous
in corruption they will choose ignorance.
The world will become black and white,
but ever so filled with marvelous colors.

My tongue will learn the life of virtue and nobility,
acquainted with simplicity and even indulgence
but weary of the brothers “over” and “under.”
He will dine at the King’s table and get drunk from flavors and spices
yet not taste a drop of entitlement.
Today he will eat as the Father does in Heaven,
Tomorrow he will eat with the Son in sorrow,
The day after he will eat with Paul, content in all things.

My passive little nose will certainly need training as well.
It is a defenseless thing that is helplessly along for the ride.
It’s submissive state has left it only one chore:
to be like a child eating a November turkey for the first time,
be curious, and
be “thanks” giving.

My feel and touch will be trained in a new job.
My fingers will no longer fing,
or whatever thing
they used to do.
Ten more tools or instruments I have
to heal the sick and ease the pain.
Five senses I possess to register this world
surely I can spare
One to help redeem it.

Yes in training they will become great,
greater than they are now.
Not greater in their original uses:
to define,
to constrict,
to limit,
But greater because they have gone beyond their original powers
to expand potential
to discover mystery
to magnify mundane
to glory in Glory.

Historically, spiritual direction has been offered as a ministry of the church, and those offering it were supported financially by the church as well i.e. bishops, priests, anchorites. The evolution of spiritual direction has emerged in its modern form through Individual Practices by “professionals” specifically trained in the art of listening, discernment and compassion and who have studied to some degree the science of Theology, Psychology or Sociology i.e. Seminarians, Cenobites and Pastoral Counselors. Both traditions of Spiritual Direction exist today for those who are called and gifted toward this ministry. Some choose to continue in the tradition of the “one another” ministry while others make themselves available to the wider community of the wandering “spiritual pilgrims.”

As someone who has formal training in direction as well as someone who is part of a small intimate house-church community I feel called to have both my feet firmly planted in both camps. As part of a small community that meets regularly in a house it is impossible, or at least very difficult, to not use your spiritual gifts in a “one another” ministry on a regular basis. At the same time I have studied Developmental Spirituality, Pneumatology and Sanctification at the postgraduate level and have been trained in the different facets and schools of spiritual direction under Supervision in a Practicum-structured program.

I believe both of these traditions are two expressions of the same Charismatic Gift – two sides of one coin – and both can be edifying to the Church and advance the Kingdom of God in their own way. One tradition does not offer more or less value than the other. But differences do exist and should be examined in order to appreciate their distinctions fully. There are four immediate differences I see between Spiritual Direction as a ministry of the local church (done informally in community) and Spiritual Direction as an intentional and intense focus on one’s relationship with God (done in a formal relationship with regular intervals for a distinct predetermined period of time). The obvious differences between “informal” and “formal” Spiritual Direction relate to: Defined Role, Relational Permission, Language/Discourse, and Environmental Context.

Defined Role

One of the first and most obvious distinctions between these ministries is the formality of title and status in one each other’s life. In a formal relationship, there is a Director (or Guide, or Soul Friend) and there is a Directee, or Counselee. This bit of formality can be off-putting but it can also be very helpful in drawing constructive and containing boundaries.

Language/Discourse

The next difference between a formal and an informal relationship is the sound, style and pace of the Language and Discourse. Much like any other profession, a doctor, or mechanic, or midwife, or artist will possess a set of techniques unique and available to call upon in each unique situation, so a Spiritual Director in a formal relationship will call upon certain techniques to lovingly prompt a reaction or discover movements of the Spirit in the other’s heart. In a friendship this pace would seem forced and unnatural, but allows for a Director to monitor and manage pitfalls or hurdles.

Relational Permission

Along with the differences between defined roles and language style come a set of spoken and unspoken relational permissions. In a formal relationship the directee is giving permission to the Spiritual Director to pursue him to the point of uncomfortable intimacy. These permissions are not lightly granted. In exchange for permission to ask probing questions and travel with another in their most sacred places, the Director is offering a safe relationship. He is agreeing to contain, in love, whatever unsightly pockets of the heart that may be revealed. (Sin: Anger, Fear, Unwanted Emotions, Outbursts, Transference, Projection, Accusations, Infant/Immature Expression, Demonic manifestations). These permissions should not be taken for granted in a good friendship, but are fortified within the context of two contracted parties.

Environmental Context

Along the same lines of creating an internal safe haven, among a formal direction relationship the Director is responsible for ensuring an externally safe atmosphere. This includes a space free of interruptions. Calming. Conducive. Prayerful. Prayed-Over. Anointed. The downside of this type of space is there is typically no barista to make you your favorite comfort-drink.

For most issues in life, I think we really just need a good friend to listen. But if you think you could benefit from intentionalizing a more formal relationship for a specific season of your life to discuss your spiritual journey, meeting with a trained Director may be right for you: Learn More About Personal Spiritual Direction

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Presently is an organization created for the sole intent of helping spiritual pilgrims receive the love of God. The name Presently is derived from the description of God’s love. His love is a constant ever-flowing action toward his children every single moment of every day.

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